Serious Leisure,Motivation to Volunteer and Subjective Well-Being of Volunteers in Recreational Events

In this paper, we examined the relationships between motivation to volunteer, serious leisure, and the subjective well-being of volunteers at the 2010 Taipei International Flora Exposition. This study used convenience sampling to recruit a total of 1,094 volunteers. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were conducted for data analysis. The results of this study revealed that serious leisure positively associated with both motivation to volunteer and volunteers’ subjective well-being, while the association between motivation to volunteer and subjective well-being, at a level of 0.5, was not significant. These results suggest that greater attention in future research should be paid to the relationship between motivation to volunteer and volunteers’ subjective well-being, with a focus placed on implications for volunteers’ subjective well-being.     

The Relationship Between Social Support and Subjective Well-Being Across Age

The relationships among types of social support and different facets of subjective well-being (i.e., life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect) were examined in a sample of 1,111 individuals between the ages of 18 and 95. Using structural equation modeling we found that life satisfaction was predicted by enacted and perceived support, positive affect was predicted by family embeddedness and provided support, and negative affect was predicted by perceived support. When personality variables were included in a subsequent model, the influence of the social support variables were generally reduced. Invariance analyses conducted across age groups indicated that there were no substantial differences in predictors of the different types of subjective well-being across age.     

The Relationship Between Social Support, Loneliness, and Subjective Well-Being in a Spanish Sample from a Multidimensional Perspective

The aim of this study was to investigate the association between social support, loneliness and well-being from a multidimensional perspective for which two structural models are proposed. The study included 2042 participants from Malaga City (Spain) who were aged between 18 and 95 years. For the dimensions frequency of support and satisfaction with support, the results show that partner support, family support, and support from friends, respectively, significantly decrease romantic loneliness, family loneliness, and social loneliness. On the other hand, community support has little effect on reducing social loneliness. Of the three types of support analyzed (emotional, informational and instrumental), emotional support was significantly more effective in reducing loneliness (family, romantic and social) and increasing well-being. Loneliness partially acts as a mediator variable, although it is affected by social support, but at the same time decreases the effects of social support on subjective well-being. The three types of loneliness have a strong negative impact on subjective well-being. Implications of these results are discussed.     

Self-Esteem as Mediator and Moderator of the Relationship Between Social Support and Subjective Well-Being Among Chinese University Students

This study examined both the mediating and moderating effects of global self-esteem on the relationship between social support and subjective well-being among Chinese university students. Three hundred and ninety-one university students (260 males and 131 females) from two different Chinese universities completed the social support scale, the self-esteem scale and the subjective well-being scale. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that global self-esteem partially mediated the influence of social support on life satisfaction and positive affect, whereas it fully mediated the influence of social support on negative affect. Moreover, global self-esteem moderated the relationship between social support and life satisfaction, and positive affect, but not negative affect. When students reported a high level of global self-esteem, those with high social support reported higher scores in life satisfaction and positive affect than those with low social support. However, there were no differences in life satisfaction or positive affect between groups with high and low social support when global self-esteem was low. The significance and limitations of the results are discussed.     

The Subjective Well-Being of Immigrants Aged 50 and Older in Israel

The present study evaluated the integration of elderly people who migrated to Israel during their lifetimes. Subjective well-being, as measured by the immigrants’ perception of quality of life, satisfaction with life and emotional state, served as a general indicator of integration. The integration of elderly immigrants has not received adequate attention in the literature. A unique database (SHARE-Israel) that was recently released has made study of this topic possible. The current study sample was composed of former migrants aged 50 and older (n = 930). The analytic model examined ethnic origin and migration variables in relation to the respective subjective outcomes, controlling for sociodemographic background, human and social capital and health. The findings show that in general, ethnic origin seems to matter less for the evaluation of immigrants’ subjective well-being than other socio economic factors such as economic status, social capital and health status. However, recent arrivals from the Former Soviet Union do differ from all other immigrant groups in their lower levels of well-being. In addition, the study points to the importance of language proficiency as a central means for integration in the destination country.     

The Relationship Between Age and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from Five Capital Cities in Mainland China

Since the mid-60s of the twentieth-century, the researchers have made lots of studies on the relationship between age and subjective well-being (SWB), and yielded some contradictory conclusions. By using an urban sample (N = 3,099) from five capital cities in Mainland China, this paper presents some new evidence on this issue in the Chinese context. The paper reconfirms a significant relationship between age and subjective well-being, and argues that different measure instruments of subjective well-being lead to different types of relationship. It is partly testified that subjective well-being follows approximate U-shape across age groups, and the minimum point lies in the age band 45–49. It is also found that age is not always a strong significant predictor of subjective well-being when a different dependent variable was adopted to multiple regression analysis. It is suggested that the researchers should pay more attention to the specific content of subjective well-being while examining the relationship between age and subjective well-being.     

Personality Traits and Subjective Well-Being: Moderating Role of Optimism in University Employees

The present study examined the moderating impact of optimism on the relationship between personality traits (neuroticism and conscientiousness) and subjective well-being (distress and satisfaction with life) among university employees. Participants were 251 (age 25–60) employees at COMSATS University, who completed demographic information sheet, two subscales (neuroticism and conscientiousness) of NEO Personality Inventory (Costa et al. in Br J Psychol 78:299–306, 1987), Life Orientation Test-Revised (Scheier et al. in J Pers Soc Psychol 67:1063–1078, 1994), Satisfaction with Life Scale (Dienere et al. in J Persy Assess 49:71–75, 1985), and two subscales (depression and anxiety) of Brief Symptom Inventory (Derogatis and Melisaratos in Psychol Med 13:595–605, 1983). On a final sample of 251 university employees, a series of moderated hierarchical regression analyses were performed separately for positive and negative health outcomes. Results indicated that optimism moderated between neuroticism and distress and neuroticism and satisfaction with life. Further, optimism moderated between conscientiousness and distress and conscientiousness and satisfaction with life. The current findings have implications for clinicians, researchers, and policy makers for the identification of resource factors that may help to understand the resistant power of non clinical sample to maintain positive functioning.     

Spousal Support of Older Women with Osteoporotic Pain: Congruity of Perceptions

ABSTRACT

Thirty-four couples were interviewed to assess the congruity of husbands' and wives' perceptions of the wives' osteoporotic pain and the exchange of instrumental support within the marital relationship. Moderate correlations were found between the husbands' and wives' ratings of two specific dimensions of the wives' pain experience: interference with daily life and pain severity. Wives who perceived their pain as more severe but as having a lesser impact on their personal lives provided the most frequent help to their husbands. The wives' pain perceptions were not predictive of the amount of assistance they perceived receiving from their spouses. Husbands' perceptions of their wives' pain experience were not predictive of the frequency of instrumental support they either received from or gave to their wives.     

Subjective Well-Being and Social Capital in Belgian Communities. The Impact of Community Characteristics on Subjective Well-Being Indicators in Belgium

In this article, we investigate the effect of individual and community level characteristics on subjective well-being in Belgium. Various indicators for subjective well-being are being used in a multilevel analysis of the 2009 SCIF survey (n = 2,080) and the 2006 Belgian ESS sample (n = 1,798). On the individual level, most hypotheses on the determinants of subjective well-being were confirmed. Living with a partner and age were shown to have strong effects, but also social capital indicators had a significant positive effect on subjective well-being. All these effects remained significant controlling for optimism. On the community level, especially unemployment rate had a negative impact on subjective well-being. The analysis further demonstrates that in homogeneous regions, community characteristics have a far weaker impact on subjective well-being indicators than in economically more heterogeneous regions.     

The Buffering Effects of Social Capital on Inequalities in Subjective Well-Being Among Older People

Social Indicators Research - Empirical evidence regarding the buffering effects of community social capital on health inequality is limited. This study aims to examine the moderating effects of a...     

The Subjective Well-Being of Immigrants: Pre- and Post-migration

In recent years, migration studies have increasingly shown that subjective well-being carries considerable weight in immigrant integration. Yet little is known about the subjective well-being of immigrants in their origin country (pre-migration) or its relation to their well-being in the host country. This paper examines the relationship between subjective well-being, both pre- and post-immigration, among North Americans who arrived in Israel during the past two decades. The study combines both quantitative and qualitative research methods. According to our quantitative findings, the labor market performance of North American immigrants in Israel is lower than in their origin countries. Further, we learned from the qualitative analysis that although the immigrants’ positions in the labor market were better in their origin countries, the immigrants perceived their standard of living in Israel to be the same as in their origin country—if not better—due to the low cost of services in Israel. The importance of the immigrant’s satisfaction from the current job in Israel was apparent in the findings of both methods. We also found that the subjective well-being of North American immigrants in Israel is relatively high, and most immigrants did not consider leaving Israel. The subjective well-being of the immigrants in Israel was found to be related to their social networks in their origin country, to their religious immigration motive and to their work satisfaction in Israel. The more supportive the immigrants’ families were of their decision to immigrate, the less the immigrants tended to consider leaving Israel. Immigrants with a religious motivation for immigrating to Israel were less inclined to leave, and the same was true for immigrants who were satisfied with their work in Israel. The qualitative data added important perspective on the immigrants’ social networks, this time in Israel. Interviewees reported having more supportive social networks in Israel, and a greater sense of community, although most of their contacts were within the Anglo community.     

Need Satisfaction Mechanism Linking Volunteer Motivation and Life Satisfaction: A Mediation Study of Volunteers Subjective Well-Being

A mediation model explaining volunteers’ subjective well-being was tested in this paper. It examined the effect of intrinsic motivation on volunteers’ life satisfaction, using the need satisfaction experienced through volunteering as an intervening variable. A questionnaire was administered to 443 participants, not all of whom had previous experience of volunteering. Mediation analysis suggested a path from intrinsic motivation to volunteers’ life satisfaction through the need satisfaction experienced during volunteering. Neither volunteer participation per se nor extrinsic motivation was related to life satisfaction. The roles of motivation and need satisfaction in volunteers’ life satisfaction were identified, with implications for future volunteer programs.     

Self-efficacy Mediates the Association Between Shyness and Subjective Well-Being: The Case of Chinese College Students

The aim of the current study was to examine whether self-efficacy mediated the associations between shyness and subjective well-being, and the universality and specificity of this mediated effect between the different groups in demographic factors, e.g., gender, only children and non-only children, urban and rural in a sample of Chinese college students. We had 311 university students, with age range of 18–24 respond to self-report measures by using the paper and pencil assessments including Cheek and Buss shyness scale, general self-efficacy scale, positive affect and negative affect scale and satisfaction with life scale. Results of structural equation modeling showed fully mediated effect of self-efficacy in the relationship between shyness and life satisfaction, and partially mediated effect of self-efficacy in the relationship between shyness and positive and negative affect. Moreover, multi-group analyses found that the paths did not differ by only children and non-only children, urban and rural, but shyness was more strongly associated with males’ self-efficacy, compared to females. Implications and limitations of the findings are discussed.     

Discrimination and Well-Being: The Moderating Effects of Agentic Value Orientations

Experiences of discrimination significantly deteriorate both subjective well-being and health; yet some people are more resilient to these negative effects than others. Previous research has considered factors such as identity or socioeconomic status that can help people cope with discrimination. However, the literature has not yet considered the ways in which agentic value orientations may moderate the negative effect of discrimination upon well-being. This paper addresses this gap by focusing on the moderating role of openness versus conservation, and self-enhancement versus self-transcendence values as agentic orientations. Analyzing the European Social Survey Round 6 (2012) with multi-level models, this study demonstrates that both individual and national level agentic orientations moderate some of the effects of discrimination on well-being an health. These findings suggest that agentic values are potentially important cognitive resources from which individuals derive strength from when faced with adverse social experiences.     

Productive Activities And Subjective Well-Being Among Older Adults: The Influence Of Number Of Activities And Time Commitment

This study examines relationships among three measures of subjective well-being (life satisfaction, happiness and depressive symptoms), and two global measures of productive activity (number of activities and time commitment). We argue that participation in multiple productive activities should increase subjective well-being because these behaviors increase social integration and provide meaningful social roles. Using the first two waves of the Americans’ Changing Lives survey, we estimate a series of OLS and ordered logistic regression models to examine this issue among a sample of respondents 60 years old and older. Our multivariate regression results show that as time committed to productive activities increases, life satisfaction increases. Both increasing numbers of productive activities and increasing time commitment predict higher levels of happiness. Also, we find only modest support for a relationship between productive activities and the number of and changes in depressive symptoms. Our results provide support for the idea that engaging in productive activities is beneficial to older persons’ well-being, implying confirmation of the role enhancement hypothesis and demonstrating the importance of social integration.This research was partially supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (R03 AG018910). We thank Jan Mutchler for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

The Construct Validity of Ryff's Scales of Psychological Well-Being (SPWB) and their Relationship to Measures of Subjective Well-Being

The factor structure of Ryff's Scales ofPsychological Well-Being (SPWB) and theirrelationship to standardized measures ofsubjective well-being (SWB) were investigated.Two hundred seventy-seven participants rangingin age from 18 to 48 years were administeredthe Memorial University of Newfoundland Scaleof Happiness (MUNSH), the Satisfaction WithLife Scale (SWLS), and the SPWB. Results failedto support either the hypothesis thatperforming factor analytic procedures on theitems of the SPWB should produce a six-factorsolution, with scale-specific items loadingmost highly on their respective factors or thehypothesis that subjecting the sub-scales ofthe SPWB to factor analytic procedures alongwith standardized measures of SWB would produceone higher-order well-being factor. Instead,item loadings clustered around three majorfactors that could not be identified with thesix scales proposed by Ryff. Moreover, thefactor analysis of SPWB and SWB scale totalsproduced three, instead of one, higher-orderfactors. Implications of findings are discussedwith respect to the relationship of the PWBconstruct to the SWB construct.     

Adult Attachment,Love Styles,Relationship Experiences and Subjective Well-Being: Cross-Cultural and Gender Comparison between Americans,Portuguese, and Mozambicans

Attachment security, love styles, and romantic relationship experiences are closely associated with subjective well-being (SWB). A few studies have empirically observed significant relations between these variables. However, no studies have included all of these predictors to analyze the unique contribution of each to SWB, and no cross-cultural studies have analyzed these variables simultaneously. This article examined (a) the relations between attachment security, love styles, romantic relationship experiences and subjective well-being, (b) the unique contribution of each to predict SWB, and (c) cross-cultural and gender differences in the predictors of SWB across three samples of 1,574 university students: 497 from North Carolina (US), 544 from Maputo (Mozambique), and 533 from Lisbon (Portugal). We found cross-cultural differences in the three samples. The main predictor of SWB was attachment security in the US and Portuguese samples, while in the Mozambican it was eros love style. Storge love style positively predicted SWB in the US and Portuguese samples, but not in the Mozambican. In contrast, mania love style predicted the SWB of Mozambicans but not that of Americans or Portuguese. We found gender similarities and differences: the association between attachment security and SWB was not gender-specific; the associations between love styles, relationship experiences and SWB were gender-specific.     

The Relationship Between Social Leisure and Life Satisfaction: Causality and Policy Implications

Social leisure is generally found to be positively correlated with life satisfaction in the empirical literature. We ask if this association captures a genuine causal effect by using panel data from the GSOEP. Our identification strategy exploits the change in social leisure brought about by retirement, since the latter is an event after which the time investable in (the outside job) relational life increases. We instrument social leisure with various measures of the age cohort specific probability of retirement. With such approach we document that social leisure has a positive and significant effect on life satisfaction. Our findings shed some light on the age-happiness pattern. Policy implications are also discussed.     

The Guardianship Experience of Women: The Relationship Between Older Wards and Their Guardians

SUMMARY

This research examined how 156 female legal caregivers responded to difficulties of being a guardian, how they derived meaning from their guardianship activities, and how the role of guardian influenced their perception of aging. The most frequent activities in which guardians engaged were visiting, providing emotional support, and to a lesser extent, giving instrumental assistance. Guardians described their emotional relationships with their wards as either “sympathetic,” “sad,” “challenged,” or “hostile.” Despite hardships associated with the duties of being a guardian, most of the women perceived benefits and expressed satisfaction from this role. Guardians reported that the relationship with their female wards shaped their perception of aging and the conception of their own aging.